WordPress, clearly. Of 527 US dental practice websites we scanned in June 2026, 54.8% run on WordPress, 35.5% run on a custom or unidentified system, 5.3% run on Wix and 4.2% on Squarespace. WordPress is the most common platform in six of the seven metros we scanned. Columbus, Ohio is the one exception.
A website's publishing platform decides more than how it looks. It decides how easily structured data gets added, how a theme handles page weight, and how much a practice owner can change without paying a developer. We read each site's HTML for the signatures WordPress, Wix, Squarespace and Shopify each leave behind, and classified everything else as custom or unidentified. This page covers what we found: the overall mix, how it shifts by metro, and one pattern in the data that runs against the usual assumption about which platform is "more set up" for AI search.
What platform do most dental websites use?
WordPress runs 289 of the 527 sites we identified, 54.8%. A custom or unidentified system is next at 35.5%, then Wix at 5.3% and Squarespace at 4.2%. One practice in our sample runs on Shopify, built as a storefront rather than a typical brochure site.
| Platform | Practices | Share of 527 |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | 289 | 54.8% |
| Custom or unidentified | 187 | 35.5% |
| Wix | 28 | 5.3% |
| Squarespace | 22 | 4.2% |
| Shopify | 1 | 0.2% |
For a rough sense of scale, W3Techs put WordPress's share of all websites with a known content management system at 59.1% in its July 2026 data (41.2% of every website it tracks, known or not). Our dental sample, at 54.8%, sits a little below that general-web figure. The two counts aren't built the same way (different detection rules, a different population), so read it as a loose comparison, not a matched one.
Source: W3Techs, "Usage statistics of WordPress", checked 26 July 2026.
Does the platform mix change by metro?
Mostly it holds steady, with one exception. WordPress is the leading platform in six of the seven metros we scanned, running from 50.8% of practices in Nashville to 61.9% in Tampa. Columbus, Ohio breaks the pattern: 46.4% of the practices we read there run on a custom or unidentified system, against 42.9% on WordPress, the only metro in our sample where WordPress isn't in front.
| Metro | Practices | WordPress | Custom/unidentified | Leading platform |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte | 153 | 59.5% | 32.7% | WordPress |
| Austin | 112 | 54.5% | 33.0% | WordPress |
| Raleigh | 64 | 56.2% | 34.4% | WordPress |
| Nashville | 59 | 50.8% | 37.3% | WordPress |
| Columbus | 56 | 42.9% | 46.4% | Custom/unidentified |
| Tampa | 42 | 61.9% | 31.0% | WordPress |
| Salt Lake City | 20 | 55.0% | 35.0% | WordPress |
We don't know why Columbus is different, and we're not going to guess at a reason the data can't support. It could be a strong local web-design shop that favors custom builds, a franchise pattern, or simple sample noise at n = 56. It's the kind of local anomaly a metro-level view catches and a national average would hide.
Source: Citevio dental practice web anatomy study, June 2026. Full metro breakdown and CSV: citevio.com/data.
Does the platform affect whether a site has structured data?
In our sample, yes, and not in the direction you might expect. WordPress sites are missing LocalBusiness or Dentist schema entirely 64.4% of the time, the highest rate of any platform we measured. Squarespace sites are missing it only 13.6% of the time, and Wix sites 28.6%.
| Platform | n | No schema at all | Both LocalBusiness & FAQPage |
|---|---|---|---|
| Squarespace | 22 | 13.6% | 0.0% |
| Wix | 28 | 28.6% | 7.1% |
| Custom or unidentified | 187 | 46.0% | 2.7% |
| WordPress | 289 | 64.4% | 3.8% |
We measured an association, not a mechanism, and we want to be precise about the difference. Squarespace and Wix are hosted page builders that add some structured data automatically as part of the platform; WordPress is open-ended, and whether a site gets LocalBusiness schema depends on a theme, a plugin, or a developer actually setting it up. That is a plausible explanation for the gap, not a tested one; we did not check which specific plugins were installed or missing. What the table does say plainly: running WordPress does not mean a practice's structured data is handled. In this sample, it usually means the opposite.
Source: Citevio dental practice web anatomy study, June 2026, n = 527. Schema definitions: schema.org/LocalBusiness. What it's for: Google Search Central, "Local Business (LocalBusiness, Restaurant, Store) structured data", checked 26 July 2026.
Is WordPress better or worse for AI visibility?
We can't answer that from this dataset, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. Only 3 of 527 practices in our sample were visible in ChatGPT and 18 in Perplexity, far too few to split across five platform categories without the result becoming noise, not a finding.
This is a case where the honest answer is a limit, not a number. A platform breakdown of 3 or 18 practices would put one or two clinics in most cells, and a single clinic moving from "not visible" to "visible" would swing a platform's rate by dozens of points. What we can say, from a sample large enough to support it, is the schema pattern above: WordPress sites in our data are more often missing the structured data that at least gives an AI crawler something to read. Whether that gap translates into fewer AI mentions is a question for a larger visibility sample than we have today.
If you'd rather see your own platform's numbers than average ones, the checker below reads your site directly.
Curious how fast your platform loads? See our companion study, how slow are dental websites.
How we identified each platform
The sample is 527 US dental practice websites in Charlotte, Austin, Raleigh, Nashville, Columbus, Tampa and Salt Lake City, plus 21 practices in 9 smaller nearby towns, scanned between 6 and 26 June 2026. For each site we read the page's HTML for a fixed set of signatures: wp-content or wp-json for WordPress, wix.com for Wix, the word squarespace for Squarespace, and cdn.shopify for Shopify. A site without any of those signatures is classified as "custom or unidentified," which covers hand-coded sites, page builders we don't specifically detect, and older systems alike, not a single platform of its own.
- A signature match, not a full audit. A site could carry a leftover signature from a migration, or hide its real platform behind a heavily customized theme. We did not manually verify every classification.
- "Custom/unidentified" is a catch-all. At 35.5% of the sample, it is large enough that a future pass naming its largest sub-groups, such as Joomla, Drupal, or specific page builders, would add real information.
- Sample, not census. This is 7 metros plus 9 nearby towns, not a national sample. We publish a national figure only once we can read at least 2,000 sites; this study does not meet that bar.
- A snapshot. Every number here carries the June 2026 scan window. A practice can migrate platforms at any time.
The full framework behind our scans, scores and city reports is in how we measure AI visibility, and the underlying dataset is free to download at citevio.com/data. If you think a number on this page is wrong, email contact@citevio.com with the domain and what you saw. We would rather be corrected than quoted wrongly.
Common questions
What platform do most dental websites use?
In our June 2026 study of 527 US dental practice websites, 54.8% run on WordPress, 35.5% run on a custom or unidentified system, 5.3% run on Wix and 4.2% on Squarespace. WordPress leads in six of the seven metros we scanned.
Is WordPress better than Wix or Squarespace for AI visibility?
We can't answer that from this dataset. Only 3 of 527 practices in our sample were visible in ChatGPT and 18 in Perplexity, far too few to break down by platform without the numbers becoming noise. What we can say is that WordPress sites in our sample are more likely to be missing LocalBusiness or FAQPage schema than sites on Wix or Squarespace, which is a different, measurable thing from AI visibility itself.
Why is "Custom or unidentified" such a large share?
Our detector looks for specific signatures in a page's HTML: wp-content or wp-json for WordPress, wix.com for Wix, the word squarespace for Squarespace, and cdn.shopify for Shopify. Any site without one of those signatures, including hand-coded sites, older systems like Joomla or Drupal, and platforms we don't specifically detect, falls into "Custom/Unknown." It is a catch-all, not a single platform.
Does the platform mix change by metro?
Yes, in one clear case. WordPress is the most common platform in six of the seven metros we scanned. Columbus, Ohio is the exception: 46.4% of the practices we read there run on a custom or unidentified system against 42.9% on WordPress, the only metro where WordPress isn't in front.